Writing skills by Nahid Esfandiari
Approaches to learning and teaching writing Writing within an environmentalist approach' 1.' Up to the end of the 1960s, writing was neglected in the language learning Field writing was considered as secondary to speech since it was regarded as just its orthographic representation. writing was seen as a language skill which served as reinforcement of ''learning grammatical and vocabulary knowledge, which in turn served to achieve oral correctness.. '. Writing within an innatist approach'''2 By the late 1960s attention began to towards ways in which text could be developed . Flower and Hayes who proposed a cognitive model of recursive writing consisting of three major elements: 1) the planning stage, ''in turn subdivided into smaller processes such as generating ideas, organizing these ideas and setting the goals for writing; 2) the ''translating stage, ''in which writers articulate and write down their thoughts generated in the first stage; and 3) the ''reviewing stage, ''in which writers evaluate and revise the text. Researchers then, began to recommend focusing on writing not as a product but as a process, thereby decreasing the focus on grammar and spelling This approach highlighted personal writing, the writer’s creativity, and fluency ' ' ' .3. Writing within an interactionist approach ' By the late 1970s beginning of the early 1980s, attention toward the influence of the interactionnist approach to language learning . Winter and Hoey was distinguished three main patterns of textual organization: 1) the ''problem-solution pattern, in which a problem is presented in a given situation followed by the response to the problem and the evaluation of the response as a solution to the problem; 2) the hypothetical-real ''pattern, which is characterized by, first, the presentation of a statement which is to be supported or rejected, and then the affirmation or denial of that statement, and 3) the ''general-particular ''pattern, in which a generalization is presented followed by an exemplification of that generalization. Halliday developed a systematic way of describing language in terms of its functions within social contexts. Basic to his theory was the notion of ''register, ''which is a functional language variation and is analyzed on the basis of three variables: ''field, ''or the social function; ''tenor, ''or the role of the participants; and ''mode, ''or what the language is doing . From an ESP genre approach, it has been recommended that three main phases should be follow in that instruction) ''modeling, in which the teachers provides an explicit explanation of the genre to be dealt with; 2) negotiating, in which the teacher guides the class composition by with; 2) negotiating, in which the teacher in which the students construct the genre by working through several drafts in consultation with the teacher. Teaching writing within a communicative competence framework .1. Discourse competence. ' Discourse competence enables writers to use discourse features to achieve a well-formed written text given a communicative goal and context in which it has to be written These discourse features involve cohesion (e.g., reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction and lexical chains), coherence as well as formal schemata or knowledge of the structure of written genres ' .2. Linguistic competence Linguistic competence comprises basic elements of written communication such as vocabulary or lexicon, grammar rules, and conventions in mechanics. Regarding lexical resources, writers need to know basic word meanings and how these meanings, for example, may differ depending on context In order to use words, writers also need to become familiar with knowledge of the grammatical system. Thus, writers need to pay attention to form in order to learn the grammar rules underlying the syntactic relations as well as the structure of clauses. Additionally, writers’ knowledge of the mechanics is essential in writing since faulty punctuation or spelling mistakes may result in an illegible written text .3. Pragmatic competence ' written clues to meaning include: text layout and graphic devices (such as punctuation and italics, among many other means), syntactic devices (cleft constructions), and linguistic devices (such as the choice of verbs or adverbs), as well as awareness of the physical location in which the text is to appear or appears An important point to remember here is that a written text also provides important clues to meaning and that mastery of how these clues is essential for writers if their ultimate goal is to make readers achieve a full understanding of a given written text .'4. Intercultural competence. Intercultural competence deals with the knowledge of how to produce written texts within a particular sociocultural context. In order to produce a competently written discourse within a particular culture, writers need to understand and adhere to the rules and norms of behavior that exist in a target language community, as well as to develop cross-cultural awareness, .5. Strategic competence ' writers need to possess a set of learning strategies to write effectively. the relevance of encouraging learners to develop the strategy of revising their drafts based on their own opinion or suggestions from peers and/or teachers. writers also need to possess communication strategies to overcome limitations in the language area, such as paraphrasing, restructuring or literal translation from the first language '''Recent research ' .1. Writers’ texts .2. Writer processes .3. Participants .4. Contexts 'The future ' .1. Corpus linguistics .2. Discourse communities and their valued genres .3. Situated texts and their domains (activity systems) .4. Multi-modal environments 5. The writer in the text: voice, persona, stance, and evaluation .6. Critical pedagogy: Ideology '''. A framework for describing goals to improve ESL writing .1. Goals as propositions with a force .2. Objects of goals .3. Actions taken .4. Contexts of actions .5. Origins of and responsibilities for goals Implications for teaching L2 writing Organize courses to foster students’ goals and their achievement . Promote a range of goals and uses of resources Respond to students’ writing in respect to their personal goals Research on second language writing (Brown) 1.Composing versus writing Writing products are often the result of thinking,drafting,and revising procedures that require specialized skills ,skills that not every speaker develops naturally. Students exhibit a number of different styles and preferences in their composing processes. 2.Process versus product Product of writing; the essay,the report,the story, and what that productshould look like. Compositions were supposed to (a) meet certain standards of prescribed English rhetorical style (b) reflect accurate grammar,and © be organized in conformity with what the audience would consider to be conventional Process approaches do most of the following : . focus on the process of writing that leads to the final written product. .give students time to write and rewrite. .place central importance on the process of revision. .encourage feedback from both the instructor and peers. 3.Contrastive rhetoric Kaplan's thesis was that different languages have different patterns of written discourse.English discourse ,was schematically described as proceeding in a straight line,semitic writing in a zigzag formation,oriental writing discourse in a spiraling line …. According to Connor,a theory of contrastive rhetoric is influenced by more than first language patterns,factors such as linguistic relativity,theory of rhetoric,text linguistics,discoursetypes and genres,literacy,and translation all contribute toward a comprehensive theory of contrastive rhetoric. 4.Differences between L 1 and L2 writing There are many differences between the two ,as Silva found that L2 writers did less planning, and that they were less fluent,less accurate,and less effective in stating goals and organizing material.Differences in usingappropriat grammatical and rhetorical conventions and lexical variety were also found ,among other features. 5. Authenticity In English for Academic Purposes,writing ranges from short phrases,to brief paragraphs,to brief erport,to a full –length research paper.to vocational –technic English,stucents need to fill out forms,write simple messages,write certain conventional reports. Another authenticity is to distinguish between real writing and display writing.Real writing is when the reader doesn't know the answer and want information.In academic/ school contexts,if the instructor is the so reader ,writing is primarily for the display of a student's knowledge.wrtten exercises ,short-answer essays,and other writing in test situations are instances of display writing. 6.Responding to student writing This facilitative role of the writing teacher has inspired research on the role of the teacher as a responder to students'writing. 7.Voice and identity Issue of how preserve the cultural and social identities of students but at the same time to teach English language writing conventions. This issue is especially acute in the case of EAP writing programs where a major goal is for students to write acceptable academic prose in their respective subject-matter fields. Characteristics of written language ; A writer's view 1.permanence 2.production time 3.Distance 4.orthography 5.complexity 6.vocabulary 7.formality Type of classroom writing performance 1,Imitative, or writing down 2,Intensive, or controlled 3,self-writing 4,Display writing 5,Real wrting Principles for teaching writing skills 1,Incorporate practices of good writers 2,Balance process and product 3,Account for cultural/literary backgrounds 4,Connect reading and writing 5,Provide as much authentic writing as possible 6,Frame your techniques in terms of prewriting ,drafting,and revising stages 7,Strive to offer techniques that are asinteractive as possible